I keep thinking about the thought that Carmen was trying to find a "cure" for humanity's "illness" when... it's not like there was never a disease at all, but more like... the disease is the City itself and the way it functions. Like a living, breathing thing that's infested and infected. But it isn't the people who are infected. It's the system.
People - individuals - can want to, and try to, do "good" things and break out of their shells as much as they want, but unless the system is one that allows them to do so, they'll only learn how futile such gestures are in the long term.
And here's the thing - I was wondering about how people from all walks of life, people like Giovanni and Gabriel and Ayin - all thought taht she must be right, that there must be something wrong with people.
For one thing, the answer is partly exactly what Roland says to Angela in Ruina - that people are so used to living in the City (inside their situations) that they effectively can't see the forest for the trees. They can't dare ask how does this work, they just have to survive. They cant see the bigger picture, just the end result.
What that means is that Giovanni saw that everyone else went around with their heads down, wearing the same expression, and Carmen didn't, so there had to be something different about Carmen. Yesod would go on to talk about how they respected her, and we see Ayin (or a reflection of him) say that Carmen was "different" from the others in the lab team, because she "cared about others."
The thing they're all doing? Setting Carmen aside as someone who "actually cares," compared to them, who are more "of the City."
What they're doing, each and every time, is making it into a problem of individuals.
This is... much like how people have been encouraged to recycle in recent years, all told to "do [their] part" - and the thing is, the reason why litter waste is still an issue, is the same as why people in the City are still Distorting, and still having hard lives, and still being cruel or callous-
The problem isn't one that can be solved by individuals. Sure, each and every person who tries to do better helps, never think it doesn't - but in the end it's the corporations (quite literally, in the City's case) who make or break the case.
Funnily enough, this - individualism vs. the power of a company (or a cohesive community) - is also the reason why there's such a big divide between Carmen encouraging Distortion (focusing only on the self) and Ayin passively encouraging EGO (a word that refers to the self, but in terms of the setting allows for far more self-reflection and re-integration into society).
Carmen thought she could, with the power of Abnormalities/Distortion/EGO, one day take on the Head. That people with that power could. She's wrong, of course, as we see in the Adam bad ending. The Abnormalities/Distortions would rampage for a couple of weeks or so and then the head would clamp down on it all, and bring back order to the City.
Ayin was the one who argued for the idea that in order to beat the Head, they had to become a Wing themselve - to beat the Head at their own game. Ayin is the one who didn't just rely on himself but (in his own words, even) "needed" others. (The line also never states that the plan specifically needs them, just that he needed them.)
Basically just... Carmen offered people a way of seeing what was wrong with the City that told them "You, personally, can make a huge difference, with your own choices. We can solve all of this by science, and cause people to stop acting in ways that hurt others simultaneously, like waving a magic wand."
Who wouldn't get drawn in by that? Get told that you could basically become a superhero who'd save everyone's souls, effectively? And it's not like she was even trying to sell them an easy solution, when she was willing to put so much work in herself, and there was science to back her theories up!
And it's so tempting. The idea that it's a thing that individuals can solve.
The idea that it's simply the state of the society you live in is so, so much scarier.
The moment you realise it's a societal problem, you have to solve it on a societal level. Sure, individualism can help, but... it's much slower than doing what needs to be done, saying what needs to be said.
Funnily enough, this is exactly what Limbus Company is doing, with the journey through the City searching for the Golden Boughs.
Whether it's on purpose or not is academic; what they're doing is that they're tearing down and/or questioning the systems that have been put in place for decades, if not centuries or more, just by being there, and by way of Dante ensuring that the Sinners stay true to their own paths.
Instances such as Dante remembering what they learned about K Corp, T Corp's Director travelling with them and becoming inspired by their ticking, the frankly massive changes they've made to H Corp... it's all doing what Carmen could only dream of, and is far closer to achieving societal change that'll allow people to be better, to be able to dream for themselves again.
And if people are able to become better and dream for themselves in kinder living situations, they're also more likely to achieve EGO if they are pushed into such a world-shattering situation. Which kinda makes it feel like instead of fulfilling Carmen's intent, Limbus Company is instead (again, intentional or not) closer to fulfilling Ayin's intent.
Carmen herself is certainly there to speak for herself, but I'm fascinated to find out if Ayin's going to have anything to say about all of this, sooner or later. It does, after all, bring everything thematically back around to him as well as her, after all.
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